


cradled in fire

by Taitiami (TheWakingWorld)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Rigel Black Chronicles - Fandom
Genre: Female Harry Potter, Rigel Black Chronicles Masquerade 2021
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28596168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWakingWorld/pseuds/Taitiami
Summary: You love her, your little ember. You've always loved her and despite everything, you know you always will.
Comments: 34
Kudos: 84
Collections: Rigel Black Chronicles Masquerade 2021





	cradled in fire

You love her, your little ember. You've always loved her and despite everything, you know you always will. 

But it can be… trying, at times. Your love is a wild tempest; violent, vicious, and voracious. She doesn't understand what it is; she sees only the destruction wrought, not the intention behind it. And it scares her. 

She fears you.

So she thrusts you down into the frigid dark depths she designed to detain you. Your very own prison, specially made. 

And sometimes, just sometimes, that howling tempest twists into hatred.

* * *

In the beginning, there is only a little flickering ember, wondrously new and painfully fragile. She is just a soft glow of candlelight, a fluttering flame that could be so easily snuffed out. So you hold her close to keep her warm and safe.

(Even later, when your little ember flowers into a firestorm, you protect her just as fiercely.)

No harm ever comes to her with you searing away any and all threats. You reach out and blunt every would-be weapon and gently push her back to her feet when she falls. She always loves when you do that.

You even safeguard the little water pup that follows her around, feeling her love for the boy keenly. After all, what she wants to protect, you must protect. The boy is a good brother to her, so you like him well enough (despite his annoyingly watery companion).

You make an effort to not be so obvious in your gentle aid when her older kin are nearby. Your little ember has been troubled by their reactions, so you try to contain your help to smaller things, fun things, silly things.

When she's bored, you change the color of a family member's hair and urge the strands to twinkle playfully at her. You do it quickly enough that no one else ever notices, leaving them to wonder what's amused her so. One memorable time, you made her mother's hair appear a mass of maroon snakes, startling her then making her bust into laughter. You also make an effort to change her father's hair into a pink and/or green monstrosity, simply because it looks especially comical with his wild mop.

When she's sad, you create little bright balls of light to float around her head until her giggles override any troubling thoughts. You even make them for the water pup sometimes, when she's upset about his own sadness.

And when she's angry, you poke great fun at the object of her irritation. If it's a person, you'll conjure a goofy hat upon their head or, if it's a particularly dire situation, make them speak backwards. And if she's annoyed at an object that isn't that important, you'll happily envelop it in sun-bright flames for her.

Most of the time, she'll eagerly ask you for a repeat performance, which you never fail to indulge. You can never say no to her. 

(And you both would pay for that flaw.)

The pitiful painting in the attic is a cursed creature that you hate vehemently. It maliciously hurts your little ember, insouciant as it attempts to extinguish her light. She and you share the same potent rage and that urge to _obliterate_ this _worthless_ imitation of humanity. 

"You're a _liar_ . I can do whatever I _want_."

You _leap_ at the painting and indulge your desire. After all, anything that upsets your little ember so greatly should not be permitted to exist. So you bathe it in a bout of vindictive flames, setting its every crooked corner alight. 

The painting screams and begs for mercy, but neither of you have any for this twisted simulacrum.

She's upset by it, its gleefully cruel words and its deafeningly terrified destruction, so as soon as you finish reducing the damned thing to ash, you leap back to her and cradle her in fire. 

There's a brief moment when she's comforted by your warm reassurance, but all too soon that comfort turns to ash as surely as the painting did.

The other children are fearful of her. Your little ember cries in shame and shock, so very confused and hurt and _scared_. She asks you to help her, and you do so without hesitation.

She wants it to be like nothing ever happened, so you reach into the children's minds and _pluck_ their memories and consciousness. They both collapse, but…

But this? This scares your little ember more than anything else.

The hiccupping panic and burn of fury are snuffed out by a stab of ice; a great and terrible fear of herself. Of you.

That night, she tells you to leave and never come back. And you have never been able to say no to her.

And for so very long, you are alone in the dark.

* * *

She enters some great play that chips away at her steadily and surely. And you know that it will reduce her to dust and cinders if you don't intervene.

The problem is, you're forced to stay deep in the crevices of her soul, barely able to perceive what is happening, let alone help. It's infuriating, but you try to keep your promise to her. You'll only intervene when you _have_ to.

But then, there is an opening. Small and ephemeral, but you rush for it feverishly. Something, an outside conduit, pierced a hole that leads to you. It is enough.

You rejoin your little ember with a vengeance.

She's often unhappy with the results of your help, but after all this time trapped deep inside her, you can only gleefully continue. Finally, _finally_ you are able to watch out for her, to taste freedom and see what she sees.

(You may also sometimes mess with her just a little, but honestly, she deserves some teasing after making you leave like that.)

You protect her as devotedly as ever. She may be miffed about your interference for some unfathomable reason (can't she see that you're helping her in classes? And she doesn't like that 'Quirrell' anyway) but you keep her out of harm's way.

...Or, at least, you try to.

A revolting waste of flesh hurts her, breaks her wrist, and you seethe over it for weeks. Oh, he thinks he's some great hunter stalking his weak prey, but he has underestimated you both. You will _tear him apart_ and _burn him to ashes_ the moment you get the chance. He'll regret hurting your little ember. 

And one day, he flounces up to her like he's worth more than a mote of dust, all petty drama and self-importance. You froth and boil agitatedly, but you can't do more than that until she calls upon you. You still try, but the conduit remains inert as her fear grows greater and greater. 

But then, _finally_ , she pleads for you to help her, and you strike with the wrath of the sun itself.

...Except you don't. 

You get as far as disintegrating the wretched little insectoid she feared so much and sending the boy flying (snap his wrist just as he did your little ember, _make him feel her pain_ ) before her frantic whispers stop you.

_Don't kill him- be feared- no_ more-

And you stop. You don't want to, you want to burn the little bastard from the inside out, but you don't. She urges you to undo the ropes that bind her, desperate to placate your shared rage, and with one last surge of malice for the boy, you listen. 

(You reduce the ropes to hemp stalks just because you can.)

You spectate near-uselessly as she meets up with other companions in their mindscapes. It would almost be amusing if not for the sharp jealousy you have to hold at bay. She plunges into them so fearlessly, when you are treated with suspicion and contempt.

But of course, you do what you can to help anyway.

You just want to _protect_ her. Why can't she understand that? 

YOU NEED TO HELP HER. _GET OUT, GET OUT, HELP HER_

How _dare_ he keep you away from her, you'll _kill_ him, _burn_ him-

And you're free, she's here, you'll protect her-

But the not-boy smirks and the dead snake slithers and your little ember nearly dies. 

You try to protect her with your blood-red shield that eats even the basilisk's scales, but it isn't enough.

Because of your weakness, she comes so achingly close to death. Her survival is solely due to the people around her that you had all but written off. 

You need to do better. You can't let this happen again.

She **crushes** you into the ice, not hearing your agonized screams.

~~Or perhaps she ignores them.~~

You both bring devastation wherever you go; it is simply in your nature, not something to repress. It cannot be stamped out, only aimed elsewhere. And if that destructive force is turned away from the world, there is only one place it can be directed. 

Bitterness, despair, and rage fester in the frozen depths where you reside. Her very essence _chip chip chips_ away, and all you can do is watch her crumble piece by piece, icebound and furious. 

She's taken away and hurt so terribly and yet your howls of rage and pain are ignored as they always are. 

You hate her. You hate her. _You hate her._

~~You love her. Why is she doing this to you?~~

You wait. 

You know well the price of acting with reckless abandon; she taught you that. And so, despite the tempest and the fury, you do not attack the pathetic rat. Not yet.

You wait. 

Your little ember is dying in the dark. You need to get her out of here, but you can only do that if you are patient.

You wait.

And when the time finally comes, you strike without mercy. 

(But your little ember reaches out, always so merciful since she learned the smell of burnt paint and the screams of the dying. And despite everything she's put you through... you stop.)

Deep under the ground and dying inch by inch, she finally accepts your burning embrace.

"I'm sorry for how I've been acting. But I'm not afraid of you anymore. So you have to act differently, too, now."

And that… that's a start. 

The jewel is a perverted reflection of life that rattles you from your very first meeting. It's _wrong_ in every way. Where you destroy and cleanse, this _thing_ twists and corrupts. It's the last thing you want in her mind.

Being _swallowed_ by the jewel is its own form of torture. But it's still better than watching your little ember flare and die out (seven of you, six enraged and all of them trapped trapped _trapped_ ) so you endure. 

Eventually, the accursed rock is forced to spit you out, and after so very long, you are finally free. 

And things… things are better. She still plays at her insidious masquerade, she's still scarred on the inside in ways you can't fix, but she doesn't fear you anymore. And that is the greatest gift you could ask for. 

You haven't forgiven her, you may never forgive her, but that doesn't change the fact that you love her just as fiercely as you ever have. And now that you're allowed to, you help her in every way you can. 

You both burn radiantly. 

The play reaches its climax, and you fear for her. Not for her life (you _will not_ let her die and neither will the jewel, no matter its flaws) but her soul. She is so very, very tired. So many parts of her are worn down and chipped away. 

This can't go on.

But finally, it does end. And when the curtain falls and tears fill her eyes, you cradle her in fire and become her wings.


End file.
